


calendar days

by gaudyaspoppies



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Coming of Age, Family, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-12 01:39:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9050044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaudyaspoppies/pseuds/gaudyaspoppies
Summary: He gathers it all—the dreams, his words, the fantasies which were more air than flesh—and pushes it out of his chest, exhaling long and slow. He ignores it with the grim hope that it will eventually shrivel into dust, like all growing, rooted things deprived of air and sunlight.Or: How Isak Valtersen learns to make friends, fall in love, grow the fuck up and stop running.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic begins pre-S1, and will end slightly after s3.

**calendar days**

 

When he was little his mother used to make them breakfast on Sunday mornings: pancakes and eggs and bacon and fried tomatoes, the way the pretty women on TV did for their families, in their pretty dresses and pretty kitchens.

His mother wasn't pretty, at least, he didn’t think, not even back then. And she didn’t wear any pretty dresses, or have many pretty things. She worked a lot with her hands; he remembers Pappa holding her wrist up carefully, examining the dirt embedded under her nails from her time tending to the garden, his voice gently teasing. _You spend so much time out there, I’m beginning to think you want to grow roots._

Feet bare and in her pajamas, she stood over the pan and cracked three eggs—for Pappa, for him, and for her—right into the oil, where they sizzled and hissed. She fished the bits of shell out from the egg-puddles with the spatula and tapped the remnants off onto the counter impatiently.

_Isak_. She turned to look at him where he was perched on the dining table. _How would you like your eggs?_

No matter his answer, the eggs she made always ended up slightly burned. In this manner it became the taste of his childhood: the blandness of unseasoned yolk broken by the sharp tang of too-much salt in another bite, and the bitterness of charred edges filling his mouth like smoke.

 

After Lea is born, Mamma doesn’t go out into the garden anymore. The flowers wither, or are swallowed up by the weeds. Their backyard is a mess, tangled and choking in green. Sunday breakfasts stop.

Mamma stays in bed all day, and Pappa puts out the cereal box instead, pouring too much milk into the bowl. Isak eats half a bowl of soggy Lucky Charms and waits till Pappa is at work to tiptoe outside of the master bedroom’s door. He tries the handle and finds it locked. He hears Lea crying inside the room a few times, but she always falls quiet eventually.

He tries to do his homework, but his stomach feels funny. The door is still closed, and he doesn’t hear anything at the moment. Surely Mamma is awake by now? She must have been taking care Lea throughout the day. Why isn’t she coming out?

Homework can’t hold his attention, and he finds himself walking around the house aimlessly. He wanders around the kitchen, opening and closing the cabinet doors. The kitchen is his favorite spot in the house. In the mornings, the sun creeps in and crosses the room as midday approaches. By now the sun has set, and everything is dark because he hasn’t turned the lights on.

It is 18: 22. Pappa won’t be back for another hour or so. He opens the fridge, and finds a carton of eggs sitting on the top shelf. Mamma hasn’t eaten anything today, as far as he can knows. She’s been irritable lately, and yesterday at dinner she snapped at him, saying he should spend more time on his schoolwork and less time watching cartoons. It must be because of Lea, he decides. She cries and cries all day and all night, and his parents don’t get enough sleep. But Pappa doesn’t have to watch Lea while he’s at work, and Mamma does. He imagines being in Mamma’s place, being tired and unable to rest because of the baby. Abruptly, Isak feels a wave of resentment. He knows that he’s supposed to love Lea; she’s his little sister and he needs to protect her. But he doesn’t get the fuss over her. She’s small and pink and squalling half the time, and her face is all squished up and frowny.

Isak rises to the tops of his feet and scoops the carton into the crook of his arm. He’s old enough to walk to school on his own now. He’s old enough to do lots of stuff. Mamma is probably sick, and when he’s sick she brings him food so he can have his meals in bed. He flicks the switch to the kitchen light, and wavers a little in front of the stove. How much oil does Mamma use for eggs? He wishes he’d paid more attention when she cooked in the past.

He has second thoughts once he turns the flames on. Mamma never liked him going too close to the stove when the fire was up. This close, he can see the ring of orange-blue flickering under the pan, feel the steady perimeter of heat. He breathes in and steps forward. Balancing the bottle over the pan, he tips his arm so a pool of oil dribbles out. _Shhhhz,_ the metal sings. Instantly, he knows he’s poured too much. He starts to crack an egg on the curve of the pan, but the bottom of his palm brushes its black underbelly, and he stumbles back with a cry. The egg rolls off the counter and falls to the ground.

His hand _hurts_. It’s all red and there’s pain, more pain even than the time he fell off his bike and scraped the skin on his knee right off. His eyes prickle with tears and he crouches down, clutching the burned hand to his chest and rocking to keep quiet.

The egg is broken on the floor, sticky yolk spreading across the tiles. Its shell is partially intact, fine lines widening into nothingness where pieces have fractured into fragments. Further in the recesses of the house, Lea takes up her thin, piercing wail.

It is 19: 47. Isak turns the stove off and washes the pan with one hand. It’s awkward, and probably not entirely clean, but Pappa is coming home soon and he needs to put everything away. He finds a roll of paper towels and wipes the runny mess off the floor. By the time Pappa comes home, the kitchen looks the way it does before Isak entered.

Pappa is not pleased with him because the TV is on. It’s set to the lowest volume, which is probably why Isak forgot to turn it off. Pappa doesn’t believe it when he says he hasn’t been watching cartoons all day. Pappa makes him sit down. _You’re not a kid anymore, Isak. Mamma is sick, and she needs to rest. You need to be more considerate. Do you know how selfish you’re acting? Do you want to make Mamma sad?_

Isak is silent. He thinks, _I’m not the one who’s making Mamma sad, Lea is!_ He wants to tell Pappa, _she won’t stop crying and so Mamma can’t sleep and that’s why Mamma’s sick!_ He wants to ask, _why can’t you be mad at her?_

But then the door opens, and Mamma comes out, slowly, like she’s forgotten her legs work. She’s still in her sleep clothes, and her hair is frizzy, as if she’s been out in the rain instead of indoors all day. She squints up at Pappa, and says, _Terje?_

After that, two things happen in rapid succession. Pappa takes Mamma to the doctor, and Mamma starts going to church. She becomes friends with all the church ladies, and instead of reading Isak stories, she reads him passages from the Bible. Bible stories aren’t as fun, full of people talking funny and telling other people not to do this and that, and though Isak feels guilty about it, he tells her he’s too old for bedtime reading and pretends to do homework before bed instead.

His hand isn’t hurt too bad, and it get less red and less swollen in a few days. Isak considers telling Pappa about it, but then he imagines Pappa will ask him how he got burned in the first place, and he’d have to admit to disobeying the rules and get into more trouble.

Isak sleeps with his injured hand wrapped in a T-shirt and arranged beside his head. Mamma gets better and stops taking her pills, but she keeps going to church. Eventually, his hand heals, and new skin grows over the tenderness, until it’s like it was never there before.

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Isak meets Jonas when he is fifteen. Lower Secondary passes in the unremarkable way of routine and habit; days of drifting and half-hearted social interactions, cutting corners where he can and feeling boredom stretch ahead of him like a track on which the train of his life is running, mechanical and steady and unchanging.

Midway through Grade 9 their Norwegian teacher moves to Stavanger, and her replacement is twice as old and twice as rigid. Seating arrangements are reorganized alphabetically so _less time is wasted looking for seats at the beginning of each class_ , the replacement claims. Nobody is fooled. Isak knows she has a copy of the new seating plan, names written neatly above each seat on the blueprint. Throughout the year, she checks the sheet every time she calls on someone. Till the last day of lessons, Isak is certain that he could have switched seats with any of the boys in class without her noticing any different.

He doesn’t care enough to fuck around though, so he takes his new designation as it is. He’s seen the boy beside him around before—Jonas Vasquez. They haven’t interacted, but the eyebrows are memorable. They make their introductions, and though Jonas seems friendly enough, they don’t really talk outside of class any more than they did before.

It’s getting cold, so Isak ends up spending most of his time at home, even though he’d rather not. Lea is at that age where she’s all giggly and fluttery, and she makes him nervous because he doesn’t really know how to hold a conversation around her. What do eight year old girls talk about? The last time he said no when she asked him to play she cried. Now he knows better, and he heads straight to his room when he gets home after school.

Pappa told him that what happened to his mother after Lea was born was a fluke, some sort of hormonal thing that happens to women after giving birth. He said that, and in the years that followed his mother seemed normal, if a little more prone to mood swings. Pappa said that, but increasingly it’s become clear that he lied.

Isak would feel bitterer about it, if it wasn’t for the fact that Pappa seems to have aged ten years in the past two. The house appears to be rigged with tripwires, vibrating with tension and silence. Dinners are awful. They sit around the table and join hands and say grace even though the only one who buys into any of the Jesus bullshit is his mother. Isak remembers a time where family meals were things of lightness and ease, but the people in those memories are long gone—dead, he thinks, when he’s in a dark mood—and here they are as strangers, mimicking the motions of people they once knew. Isak pushes his food around his plate while Pappa makes small talk and tries to clear the air of ghosts.

The pattern isn’t constant, but it’s there. On good days, they sit through the stilted silence and Isak finishes his food as quickly as he can. On bad days, his mother breaks into long, rambling speeches, about war and destruction, fire, brimstone and salt, the seas rising to carry everything away, and the earth splitting into two. Lea is too young to be scared, and she mostly smiles in bemusement, but Pappa gets quieter and stiller when she does that, the lines around his eyes deepening, until he inevitably steers her into the bedroom and shuts the door.

On bad days, Isak clears the table and dumps the plates into the sink when Lea is finished. He retreats to his room and queues up Arrow on his laptop, putting headphones on with the volume up, so he can pretend not to hear the shouting and crying.

January is a bad month. He comes to school tired and cranky, too tired to even be angry. His focus is shot, and on Thursday he ends his school day with a pop quiz in Norwegian that he knows he fucked up. Isak buries his head in his hands and breathes deeply. He wants to sleep forever and not have to think anymore.

 _Hey man,_ someone says, and he looks up to see Jonas watching him, looking somewhat amused. _The test went that bad?_

Isak huffs. _Yeah, something like that._

He expects that to be the end of their conversation, but Jonas continues to look at him. His gaze is fixed, and Isak feels oddly exposed. Face warming, he clears his throat. _What?_

There is another beat of silence, where Jonas seems to be considering him. Then his face relaxes into a smile, and Isak realizes, in the afternoon light, that Jonas’ broad face is expressive and open—handsome.

_You shouldn’t beat yourself up about it, man. Everything is chill. And hey, I’m gonna get some kebab after school, and then maybe hit the ramps after. You skate?_

It takes Isak a bit to realize he’s asked a question. _Uh—yeah, a little._

_That’s cool. There’s a pretty rad place around here—I like to go there to destress and shit, you know? You should come. The people there are cool._

Isak knows there’s no reason to say yes. He’s always kept to casual acquaintances, people he greets in the hallways and maybe has lunch with, but nothing more than that. He’s not sure how to explain that his house is off-limits, so he sticks to the simplicity of chatter and drawl, fist-bumps and nods. No one ever asks to come over. He’s fine with the vague relations he has with the guys he hangs out with from time to time. He doesn’t need one more.

But January is a bad month, and if Isak is being honest, a sad month. He spends the hours trying to fall asleep every night wondering what it would be like if he had someone else’s parents, or if his mother had stayed the keen-eyed, lively woman with weather-worn hands. He imagines a world where his mother’s body had not been betrayed by the birth of her children, and falls asleep dreaming of a universe where the backyard is lined with bluebells and daffodils, where Sundays are gentle affairs. Waking is always a disappointment.

So when Jonas asks, Isak knows there’s no reason to say yes. But he does. And later, after kebab, when Jonas tries to show off with what he calls a frontside flip on the skating ramp and ends up tripping over his own feet, Isak laughs and laughs, and Jonas joins in.

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

With Jonas comes Ingrid, who Isak avoids with the well-honed instincts of prey. Things are different with Jonas—Isak has never liked someone this much, but Jonas makes it hard not to. He’s funny and kind and smart, and though he obviously knows something is up with Isak’s home life, he doesn’t push. They settle into best-friendship easily. It’s the most natural thing to skive off classes together, to go to Jonas’ and play video games, and to text each other randomly when they’re apart. Gradually, he stops hanging out with his loose circle of acquaintances, and his after-school hours fold into the cadence of Jonas’ life. Occasionally he wonders if Jonas thinks him pathetic, if he pities this boy, who within the span of three months has basically attached himself to Jonas’ side like an additional limb. But Jonas seems to genuinely enjoy hanging out with him, so Isak endures the unpleasantness of having to share his attention with Ingrid, who is decidedly unimpressed by the new addition to Jonas’ ranks.

Isak learns that the two of them have been dating since the beginning of the school year. Already they’re met by playful ribbing in school, and in the hallways the couple is always trailed by jeering comments, leering innuendos, and Isak. When Isak falls in place behind them, he finds himself staring at the mole on the back of Jonas’ neck, at the thickness of his fingers, slotted between Ingrid’s finer, paler ones. That semester, he takes to reciting the times tables in his head, then to listing the elements of the periodic table. He keeps his hands curled inside his pockets, pretending his footsteps are plodding and measured, and not magnetized to the drag of Jonas’ soles, or the buoyancy of his laugh.

When summer comes, the warm weather is a relief. Outside, it’s almost possible to forget that his mother has been crying constantly, heartbroken about her brother’s sins. Pappa had expressed his confusion, knowing that she hasn’t had contact with her younger sibling, who works as a tax accountant in Bergen, in months. His mother’s resulting babble about pride, gluttony, cruelty and immigration policies in America led to the realization that somehow, her brain has cooked up a reality where Donald Trump is a blood relation. It may have been funny if it hasn’t been so horrible. Even Lea is beginning to understand that something is very wrong.

Perversely, Isak is glad when Jonas tells him he’s been seeing Eva behind Ingrid’s back.  First, of course, there is that dull swoop of resignation that he won’t let himself examine. But Jonas is beseeching, uncertain and shamefaced, and Isak only has one friend, the best friend, in this world. So he swears himself to secrecy and marshals all his energy into running interference for this illicit relationship, waylaying Ingrid with faux-clueless questions about Bio and cozying up to Sara so he always knows where Ingrid will be. He subtly nudges Eva and Jonas away from Ingrid’s path. He plans and he predicts and he pulls the wool over their eyes. He’s good. It’s good. Even after the fallout, when Eva and Jonas are smarting from the severing of ties, it’s good. In love is a good look for Jonas, and at that point, Isak is not yet small enough to deny that it is on Eva, too.

It hurts. But it’s a good hurt, really, the kind that makes you determined to be sharper, leaner. It’s a hurt that colonizes the mind, and fills you up, so there’s no room for other older, colder hurts. At night, the tightness in his chest comes from a different reason now. New hands leave imprints in his dreams—broad, masculine palms that cup his face and skim his sides, rising again to encircle his throat, to tighten, to bruise, and here in the netherworld of his unconscious, Isak thinks: _please, please, please._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for homophobic & misogynistic slurs

Nissen is uncharted territory. His peers are transparent in their attempts at reinvention, but Isak is grateful for the familiarity of Jonas and Eva. He thinks they work well as a group—they have each treaded grooves into each other’s lives, and are bound by the ropes of a shared, if checkered, history.

At some point, without his noticing, Isak gains not one friend, but two. Eva is a spitfire of a girl, quick-tempered but sweet, self-conscious in a way he relates to. They enter high school clustered as a trio, and settle into a spot of their own within the social sphere. Isak can’t help but be amused when Jonas reads The Communist Manifesto and begins a one-man crusade against the evils of capitalism. He goes on long rants that Isak and Eva bear patiently. The next time Jonas talks about exploitative labor practices, Isak tells him to shut his trap and boycott Nike.

He is less amused when Jonas starts hanging out with Elias, who seems to sense Isak’s vulnerabilities as a shark smells blood in the water. The first time he calls Isak a faggot, blood roars in his ears. For a brief, sick moment, the room is emptied of sound. It soon becomes apparent that Elias is just an uncreative asshole who cycles through his stock of insults like a peddler with limited wares, but the tension never quite leaves Isak’s body after.

Is it the way he walks? Talks? The way he dresses? He’s not a fag. He knows this. But then they go to the cabin and he walks in on Eva straddling Jonas, shirt half-lifted, and he remembers the way Jonas curls his shoulders into an aggressive slouch to mirror Elias’ stance, and all Isak can think is _he’s going to leave me_.

He panics. He’s not proud of it, but when Eva asks about Ingrid, he remembers the summer before Nissen, speaking in half-truths and implications. It’s instinctual for him to hedge and demur, to intuit Eva’s concern and feed her the facts, twisted— _maybe they text a little._

The day he comes home from the cabin, he has to pry away his mother’s arms. She tries to hold him, sobbing _we have to hide_ and _the Lord’s judgement is coming!_ At least Lea is at a sleepover, thank fuck. He texts his father to come home, then spends the next three hours hiding in the bathroom, turning the red snapback he borrowed from Jonas over and over in his hands, trying to remember how to breathe. He scrolls through his phone’s music library and deletes “I’m Yours.”

Back at school, he reuses his ploys, plays the middleman, the mediator. Jonas gets into weed, and so Isak does too. He listens to the rap artists Elias and Jonas are always talking about, and is surprised and pleased by how much he likes the music. For Jonas’ sake, he tries to ignore Elias’ barbs. _He’s only joking_ , Jonas tells him. _He’s only joking_ , Isak reminds himself, over and over. _Stop being such a pussy. Let it go._  They keep hanging out. They skate, they get high, and they talk about girls. They laugh. He sees Eva standing among her new group of friends, tracking the gentle sway of Jonas’ body.

He doesn’t know how to stop. He’s not sure he wants to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are appreciated, y'all. let me know what worked.


	5. Chapter 5

Eva tells him she wants to transfer out of Nissen. Guilt is an unwelcome occupant in his belly, a sourness that he chases down with four cans of beer after their call ends. Eva doesn’t deserve any of this, and neither does Jonas, who oscillates between bewilderment, paranoia and hurt at her behavior.

History has a way of repeating itself. With Ingrid, Jonas had become brusque and sullen, and she had turned petty and vindictive. Ever since they started at Nissen, Eva has been painfully timid. She hovers, huffs and sighs, her past brazenness nowhere to be seen. When she does lash out, it’s with the desperation of someone who’s drowning, all clumsy terror and clawing hands. On his part, Jonas has developed a base meanness, his mocking taking on the heaviness of condescension.

Neither of them are happy. In times of cowardice, Isak pretends that’s the reason he’s driving them apart.

But Isak knows that there’s never been a point to lamenting about fairness. No one gets what they deserve. The world doesn’t work like that.

 _It’s just so much, man_ , Jonas says, sprawled out indolently on his bed. His head lolls to the side, where Isak waits to pluck the joint from his fingers.

_That’s why it’s so fucking awful. Like, she’s so great. I think about her all the time, you know? I wanna touch her all the time. And I’m not talking about, like, her boobs and shit. I wanna touch her ear. I think about kissing her elbows. She’s ticklish there, it’s so cute._

_Mm_ , Isak returns.

Jonas sighs, _I love her._

They’re both high as fuck, and Isak is high enough that, to his horror, his eyes blur with tears. He’s quick to turn his face away, but even while high, Jonas is unnervingly perceptive.

 _Hey._ He reaches out, ungainly, pawing at the covers. _Hey, what’s wrong?_

It’s not anything that Isak doesn’t already know. It’s easy to see it whenever Jonas is with Eva, the depth of care and adoration between them both. Isak has been making jokes about it all year, enacting the requisite amount of waspish peevishness— _but who needs me?_ But this is different. Jonas is hazy and unguarded, and his voice is colored with so much feeling.

_Lonely, I’m Mr. Lonely._

For a moment, he thinks about telling Jonas about everything: his mother, his manipulations, the fact that Jonas has changed him irrevocably, the fact that Jonas is the single most important person in his life. Isak thinks about telling Jonas that he’s the reason Isak hasn’t been engulfed by the white walls of his house, where the doors and windows are sealed like airlocks.

 _I always want you with me_ , he’ll say. _I miss you even when you’re here_.

_You’re a stingy-ass motherfucker when it comes to food and beer and a sore loser and you snore when you sleep and care too much about what Elias thinks and I know exactly how many moles dot the sides of your face where your chin meets your neck._

He’ll say, _will you hold me, just once?_

The phone under Jonas’ thigh lights up: Eva. Jonas groans, and the precipice vanishes.

 _I can’t. I can’t talk to her,_ Jonas says.

Isak claps him on the knee and tells him he doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to. He orders pizza—pepperoni for Jonas and Hawaiian for him. He turns Jonas’ phone off, then makes him sit up.

_Wanna watch Narcos?_

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Isak seems like the sort of heathen that would enjoy pineapple on his pizza. 
> 
> Comments are awesome.


	6. Chapter 6

His mother is sitting at the piano. She has sheet music spread out in front of her, and she looks up when Isak kicks his shoes off at the door.

_Oh,_ she says. _Isak?_

She looks different. Her hair is gathered into a low bun, and her face is shiny like she’s just washed it. Her eyes flicker over his face, then down to his feet. She _tsks_.

_Go put your shoes on the rack, please._

Startled, he complies.

She plays a few chords and stops, frowning to herself. She scratches at a spot high up on her back.

_How was your day?_ She asks absently.

_Fine_ , he says. He steps warily into the living room. _You’re composing?_ She hasn’t done that in a long time.

His mother hums. _Thinking of bringing this piece to church. Maybe. Depends on how it goes._

_Okay._ Isak fidgets in place. He doesn’t know what to say.

_I heard from Mrs. Evang that Lea has a crush on a boy in class._ She chuckles. _I asked Lea about it and she got all embarrassed. So sweet. Oh—what’s the time?_

_14.49,_ he tells her.

_Have you eaten? Are you hungry?_

He shakes his head.

_Isak, come here._

Her eyes are calm, but still he hesitates before going to the piano.

_Isak, is everything okay?_

_Are you fucking kidding me?_ He wants to ask. But his father’s voice comes to him, quiet and firm. _You mustn’t upset your mother._

_Yeah._

Somehow, that isn’t the right answer. His mother’s face creases.

_Oh, baby._

_What? I said I’m fine._

_I know, I know._ She chews her lip, eyes roving over his face. _Isak. I want you to know that…I’m sorry I’ve been so. I’m sorry I’ve not really been myself. Sometimes things get—yeah. I haven’t been able to check up on you and Lea._

She laces and unlaces her fingers.

_But I love you, and I’ve been praying a lot. I know God is with me, and I have faith that he’ll give me strength to get through this._

He can’t help himself. _God hasn’t been the one taking care of you. It’s been Pappa._

_What?_ Her surprise stings. _No, of course—Isak, that’s not what I meant._

_Well, I don’t know what you mean. Anyway, I have homework to do,_ he says, and he turns down the hall.

His mother calls out plaintively behind him, _Isak, you’re in my prayers—_

He waits, but the notes of the piano don’t start up again.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have so many Ideas about what mamma valtersen is like, y'all. 
> 
> leave a comment or kudos and let me know your thoughts!


	7. Chapter 7

His parents met late in their lives, marrying a full decade after most in their generation. Pappa was in advertisement, and his mother was in real estate. They were representatives of their respective firms at a clean energy conference that neither of them cared much for. They got lunch together a week later, but paid for their own meals.

Isak doesn’t know much about their years before him, but he remembers that his parents bought the house when he turned five. A funeral was held for Pappa's sister that same month. She slipped away quietly at the end of a long battle with lung cancer, despite never having touched a cigarette. Her name was Bea, but Pappa always called her Bee. The two of them had been born six minutes apart.  

Pappa wasn't at the hospital in Bee's final days. He went to work as usual, marching out the door like a man ignoring a limp. They stopped spending Christmas with Pappa’s parents in Holmenkollen. His grandparents have become smudged, faint-featured phantoms banished to the disinterest of his childhood memories. But there is a knitted quilt Pappa takes out to put on the sofa in winter, the smell of old-fashioned perfume on it since faded, and a heavy, expensive watch he continues to wear to dinner functions, the kind of watch one might receive as a gift from an older relative.

Other things he remembers: hearing his mother through the walls, murmuring _go to sleep, it was just a dream, everything is alright._

Pappa’s voice, muffled and strangely childish, lilting in question— _Bee?_

 

Outside, the sky is bright and blue. Isak can hear a car pulling up in a neighbor’s driveway. Someone in one of the houses out back is using a lawn mower. A dog is barking in a frenzy.

The seams of the winter quilt are coming apart under his twisting hands.

_What do you want?_ Pappa shouts. _I don’t know what you want from me, Marianne!_

She moans, _o god, my god,_ the line between prayer and horror unclear.

He was supposed to meet Jonas ten minutes ago. He should text Jonas to let him know he’s running late. He should get dressed, and get his keys.

Isak doesn’t do any of these things.

_I can’t do this_ , someone says. _I can’t, I’m sorry._

The man clears the living room with stiff, ground-eating strides, pausing only to snatch his coat off the hat stand. He doesn’t spare a look for the boy on the couch.

Yesterday, the boy on the couch overheard someone in class saying, _did you know that people who had their leg cut off can still feel it itch? It drives them crazy, because they feel it but they can’t reach it._

The front door slams.  

Then the whimpering, like a small, hurt animal. _Nonononono_ , the woman goes.

_Nonononononono._

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am drowning in work and feeling like shit. Thank god the year is closing. 
> 
> kudos & comments are welcome, as always.


	8. Chapter 8

_Do you have feelings for me?_ Eva asks.

It’s a simple premise that she would recognize, a story that would extract him from the shitstorm he’s made.

He spins it.

 

Eva and Jonas break up, but stay friends. Jonas tells him about the speech Eva gave him. _We’re not good for each other_ , Jonas concludes. Isak isn’t convinced Jonas believes that. Knowing him, he understood how trapped Eva felt, how lost, and decided that if this was what she wanted, he would give it to her. Isak marvels at the lack of spite, this natural and unthinking overture of affection and support in a new capacity.

But while Jonas’ generosity is vast, Isak knows that even Jonas may tire of him someday, when Isak’s helpless need becomes too heavy a burden to bear. For Isak has come to realize that where Eva and Jonas dragged out the worst in each other, their relationship brought dawn on the dark and hidden spaces inside him, awakening an ugliness long dormant. He sees, finally, the fragility of balance, the exact distance that had kept their little triad suspended, which he had ruined with his reckless intervention.

 _My mother is crazy_ , Isak announces. It doesn’t hurt as much as he thought it would.

Jonas’ concern is solid. Factual. He puts his hand on Isak’s shoulder and says nothing.

Isak is certain that what is inside him is dangerous, a thin blade of feeling that will cut at the precise point where his best friend’s touch rests, slicing them apart. He gathers it all—the dreams, his words, the fantasies which were more air than flesh—and pushes it out of his chest, exhaling long and slow. He ignores it with the grim hope that it will eventually shrivel into dust, like all growing, rooted things deprived of air and sunlight.

Second semester is quiet. Isak isn’t sure who’s the first to leave a text unanswered, or the one who stops extending invitations to the other, but he and Eva stray out of orbit gently, two pieces of driftwood after a shipwreck. Jonas stops dancing around Eva and starts fucking around with ’00 girls. Elias is caught spreading answer sheets to a third year test, and is suspended for two glorious weeks. At a second year party, Sara slides her palm up his chest and tells him to take her somewhere they can be alone. They make out in someone’s bedroom, Isak opening his mouth the way he’s seen Jonas do, applying pressure and suction in varying degrees. He doesn’t hesitate; he knows exactly where to put his hands. They’re both too drunk to go any further, and Isak passes her over to Ingrid at the end of the night. He replays the scene in his head back at home, irrationally afraid of having failed. There’s only so much rehearsal can do.

Thankfully, the rumor mill does the work for him. A new school week starts, and it’s common knowledge among the first years that Isak got sucked off over the weekend. He gets a shiny, newly-minted girlfriend who is, in the words of Magnus from Physics class, _hot_.

Events occur with the blur of momentum. Jonas stops fucking around with ’00 girls and starts dating Isabel from third year. Eva starts piling herself with alcohol at parties. _I’ve missed you_ , she tells him one time, through the hiccupping laugh she has when she’s drunk.  One night, Jonas calls him after being jumped by some Yakuza guys. Isak swears retribution, and gets it.

His father doesn’t come home. Isak’s inbox fills with unread texts.

Ultimately, he gets the news from his mother: there will be a divorce.

Isak makes his way into a dimly lit bar filled with movement and men, and gets utterly shitfaced.

He feels a cool touch against his forehead, and from far away—

_Aren’t you Isak? Noora’s friend?_

His head is pounding.

_Are you okay? Is there someone who can take you home?_

_Don’t make me_ , he begs. _I don’t,_ _I can’t—I’ll go crazy._

_I’m going crazy._

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that we're at this chapter I can finally change the summary to what was originally intended.
> 
> leave a comment and let me know what you think!


	9. Chapter 9

Between June to July, he texts his father only once.

_Tell her I’m moving out. Need 4000kr for monthly rent. If you’re going to run away, the least you can do is take Lea with you._

Part of him wishes his father will get angry. Will tell him _don’t be stupid, Isak, what are trying to do?_ Will tell him _no, this is what’s going to happen, so listen._

But this is not the same man who once held his wife’s dirt-stained hands. This man is a had-been, a once-twin, a man whose straight-backed walk has steadily carried him to the exit. A man whose leaving has set the scene of abandonment.

He receives a string of text messages after, but he only reads the first.

_I’ve told mamma. Lea is staying with me._

_I’m sorry._

 

 

They’re smoking up at Eva’s party, and it’s good shit, enough that he doesn’t give Jonas crap about how he’s wearing sunglasses indoors like a fucking douchebag. Mahdi and Magnus are chill, Isak supposes. He’s hung out a couple of times with Mahdi, who Jonas knows through Ingrid’s brother, and he knows Magnus is a fun guy. One of those people you want around because they never seem to run out of crazy stories about stupid stuff.

Elias hasn’t been coming over to Jonas’ this semester, and while Isak isn’t sure what to make about this stroke of good fortune, he’s decided not to ask in case he jinxes it. He likes this crowd way better than the set-up they had going last year. Magnus and Mahdi can be assholes sometimes, but then again they all are with each other, and it’s pretty standard. It helps that these guys aren’t too caught up in the small stuff. He likes the backtalk and the smacktalk, the tussling and getting fucked up and shooting the shit. Isak has a decent grasp on the vibe they have going on by now, so he always knows what to say. All in all, it’s easy companionship.

In the middle of all their back and forth a girl comes in, and then the first year he was talking about makes an entrance. The others visibly refocus on her. Magnus tries to get her attention, and fails spectacularly.

Of course. If Jonas’ information is right—and if it came from Eva, it means it came from Vilde, which means it’s definitely right—this girl doesn’t lack for attention or compliments. _This is fucking boring_ , she had said.

_Do you know who you look like?_ Isak asks, rolling his neck to look up at her. He makes the question cocky, his tone slyly suggestive. He had asked after she turned away from the drawers, her body open and facing their line of sight. It’s a gamble, but she flicks a look up as she starts to put the pills away. _Yeah._

Punchline: _The little boy…from Stranger Things._ They all break into snickering. _You know_. _The little boy who’s actually a girl. Eleven._

He draws the joke out a little longer, until the girl crosses her arms, more annoyed than embarrassed.

_What?_

From here he prompts a name out of her with an introduction of his own, and then says evenly: _Emma, you’re damn beautiful_.

The friend makes to leave. Isak continues holding her gaze.

Emma the first year asks whether he knows if the pills will work.

_Gotcha,_ Isak thinks.

He levers himself out of the bathtub and plays the game.

When an opportunity arrives, he pops out a tablet and places it on his tongue. This isn’t anything that will work, either, but Emma doesn’t know that. He keeps his mouth ajar, arching a brow expectantly. He sees the moment she decides to go for it, satisfaction coiling when Emma kisses him and Mahdi laughs, impressed.

Unexpectedly, the boys file out after Emma’s friend, leaving them alone.

The door shuts and Isak breaks the kiss. Emma pulls him back, then starts making her way down his chest. He can’t help the flare of alarm, or the nervous sound that he tries to turn into a laugh. Backing up, he pulls her upright.

She doesn’t get the hint.

Anxiety creeps in and builds. Emma lowers herself onto her knees.

Isak pivots on the balls of his feet and flattens himself against the wall. His stomach sinks. Emma is projecting both offence and confusion. He doesn’t know if there’s anything he can say that will pass for an explanation.

_Emma,_ someone says.

_Thank fuck._

They’re gone, but Isak doesn’t rejoin the others immediately.

He shuts his eyes and waits for his pulse to slow back down.

 

 

                                               

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you liked!

**Author's Note:**

> my ask box is always open, so hmu on [tumblr.](amplesands.tumblr.com)


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